/lit/ - Literature

For a two and a half hour long movie, they still decided to cut my favorite part of the book, the scene about the most photographed barn in the world. Generally speaking when they cut things I like, there isn't really an issue. The hobbit movie cut 15 Birds because it didn't thematically go with the aesthetic they were going for, I get it, the movies were shit, but I get it.

Them cutting the barn scene is indicative of them not quite getting it. Like they spent too much time figuring out how to adapt each individual element of the plot into a movie they killed the bits that made the book so unique. Each part that was supposed to be the awkward and uncomfortable self realizations were framed as serous discussion scenes, they made the purposely awkward dialogue of the book into unironic straight forward scenes, which makes the awkwardness of the whole bit lose it's luster. The introduction, the scenes at the school, the scenes at the supermarket, those were the one's as close to the book as they could get. I think the problem is that the two main actors weren't ugly enough and didn't portray being truly in middle class love like the book does. It's suppose to be this strange and cringe lovey dovey 1950s TV kinda chemistry, but the actors and the script writer wrote the dialogue, again, as if it was a normal movie.

The middle section with the toxic airborne event was great, I enjoyed the dramatic shift in color, composure, etc. But they again didn't get it all correct. It was like half the movie was directed by Edgar Wright and when it worked it worked for that overwhelming quick and snappy consumerism. The other chunk of the movie, the part that actually made the plot move forward, felt like they were superficially trying to pull what James Ponsoldt did at The End of the Tour or even fucking MY DINNER WITH ANDRE, but it just didn't work. I didn't feel they were truly in Xanax love enough to be able to be that flat for so long of the movie. Because of that the meandering murder third act just didn't work as well as it did in the book, they shoe horned it into an actual plot and not just a 'I don't know how to end the book, here's some nuns.'.

Thank god for that dance number at the end.